Pachter Speculates: Sony’s Acquisition of Gaikai an Effort to Sell More TVs

July 2, 2012
Written by Alex Osborn

Earlier today, news broke that Sony purchased Gaikai, a well established cloud gaming company for $380 million. Wedbush Securities Analyst Michael Pachter has some thoughts of his own on the deal, noting that the move is likely related to a much larger plan at Sony.

In an interview with CVG Pachter explained that Gaikai will likely have plenty to offer Sony outside of its PlayStation division, namely, its television line.

I think that this is more related to Sony’s integrated strategy, and ties into their hopes of selling more televisions. I know that Gaikai was purchased by Sony Computer Entertainment, but essentially, they provide a solution to play games without a console, so they make a lot of sense if built into Sony TVs.

This could be both a strategic move to sell more TVs and a pre-emptive move to keep others from using the service. It’s actually a very interesting deal, and the price is reasonable if it gives Sony an advantage over other television manufacturers while keeping the technology off the market so that others can’t eliminate the need for a console.

It’s important to note that Gaikai recently formed partnerships with both Samsung and LG to bring gaming capabilities to their televisions, so it will be interesting to see how the recent acquisition impacts the future of the TV market. Before the purchase, we speculated a move like that could be integrated in Sony TVs, smartphones, consoles and more.